MR | Second Edition, January 2014

SEQBeers will be continuing this week. I’ve just returned from a short trip to the Sunshine Coast, so there’s the eponymous brewery from that part of the world and I have a couple of brewpubs up my sleeve but have yet to finalise what to write about. Hopefully I’ll have made a decision by Wednesday.

To the Tweet of the Week!

Met a bloke in the pub the other night. He said he was a Coroner so I squeezed a lime into his eye.

To “probably politically incorrect”-ly call an American IPA after a native American character, then sketch her up as a WHITE GIRL WITH FEATHERS, shows about as much cultural and sexual sensitivity as a potato. It’s an absolute fucking disgrace and I would call for the boycott of these beers if people were actually drinking them.

I’m going to nail my colours to the mast and wholeheartedly agree with TheWestbender’s comments, not least because I encouraged him (in part) to post them. The alternative was ammo writing something similar. I could almost look the other way if All Inn wasn’t the most pedestrian brewery we have.

When you make an offer to the public, the public is free to comment honestly on how that offer was at the time. The customer is under no obligation to give the vendor a chance to redeem themselves after the transaction has been made, unless they choose to do so. Personal confrontation is not what you go out for in most cases. That doesn’t mean you spend time later slagging people off willy nilly and of course there are ways of saying it nicely and contextualising it, but if you think the whole experience was poor, or that a particular brewery doesn’t do it for you or is poor, you should feel free to say so.

Expected to be slightly larger than the existing Tippler’s Tap, the Tomahawk Bar will seat about 80 to 100 people and will offer 10 — 12 rotating taps of independent craft beer, a wide selection of bottles, a moderate selection of quality wines more than tipplers and a bit higher level and growlers.

A row worthy of our very own Brewdog has erupted over in Iceland with the news that brewer Brugghús Steðja (no, I don’t know how to pronounce it either) plan to market a beer containing whale meat. The 5.3% beer, brewed in conjunction with whaling company Hvalur, is being launched to coincide with the Icelandic mid-winter festival of Torrablst (Thorrablot) which is held in honour of everyone’s favourite Norse superhero, Thor.

There’s no denying that craft brewing is a business—a big one at that. Koch is a billionaire, and some indie labels have sold for over $100 million. Still, competing with one’s craft brew brethren is tricky; one is not supposed to overtly bully bars, restaurants, or distributors or otherwise play hardball to shut out the competition.

At least that’s how things have largely been portrayed during the craft beer boom that’s several years in the making. So it came as somewhat of a shock when one well-known craft brew player recently accused another of specifically targeting its business and trying to replace its brands on tap wherever possible.

Constellation Brands expects ‘great things’ after launching Corona Light on tap and is confident it can boost draft sales to 10% of its business while beating craft beers on premise and at retail level.

Diamond Age was written in 1995 while Mr. Stephenson was living in Seattle, Washington so things like stormy weather stouts and hefeweizen with a lemon in it were likely a normal aspect of his daily life.

There have been suggestions on beer collaborations with the author, but nothing seems to have some it as of yet. Which shows that I am not the only one mixing my nerdy infatuations.